Yesterday morning Jon Haley, a missionary in Spain, preached an amazing message called the Horizons of Life. It was out of 1 Peter 4, and what caught my attention most was Peter's call to be clear-minded and self-controlled (NIV) so that we can pray. As I have delved deeper into the missional paradigm of church I have enjoyed reading and interacting with people about all kinds of concepts and ways of thinking. I have made time for this reading and these conversations. I make time to write on this blog and to read others. Many times I do not make time to pray.
One of the things I have loved about the missional church conversation is the call to reliance on the Spirit of God. We take action but understand that it is not our strategies that will transform lives, ours or others. One of the logical outcomes of this should be a desire, even a need, to cry out to God and say "your kingdom come!" Yet lack of discipline in our lives can defeat the best of intentions. I came out of the sermon yesterday wanting to spend significant time calling out to God, but if I do not create the time for this to happen it will not happen.
I was talking with a friend this morning about where prayer should come from. By that I mean specifically, should we wait until we have a desire to pray and then do it, or should we discipline ourselves to pray and then hope our heart follows. We both spent much of our lives setting aside time to pray because we were supposed to and our hearts didn't follow. But I think it is also possible to have a heart that longs to pray but never do it because we are not disciplined. It seems to me that both of these elements are essential. We must seek God and be given a heart desire to be with him, but we also have to create time when this can happen. We must be both passionate and disciplined about prayer. Prayer reminds us that we are reliant on Him and that we will see greater things that we could imagine when it is His power and not ours at work.
3 comments:
Hey Trev, I thought about it briefly this afternoon at work. I think for people that have the actual desire, that it's more about creating space. If I can't muster up the discipline, maybe I should just create the space to go for a walk or do some snowshoeing. Or maybe go hang for an hour at the Catholic seminary and be around the icons.
I do believe discipline has its place and I think we all approach discipline a little differently, but for me it's more creating an environment that encourages healthy rhythms rather than simply being better disciplined.
I guess that's mostly what I mean by discipline. The discipline to structure our day in a way that creates space. Not so much a specific discipline or set amount of time that constitutes our prayer time.
I like your illustration of "creating space." I have the desire, but I don't make the time or set myself up for success in this area. Of course it's beneficial to pray as I go about my day, but it's also necessary to have that dedicated time throughout the week. Thanks for challenging me to create some space.
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